Did You Know...

Who’s behind the Cap-and-Tax 8 Republicans? You won’t be surprised. Kevin Mooney at the Examiner reports:

Rep. Kirk of Illinois, for instance, was among the top 20 recipients of PAC donations from environmental groups in the 2008 election cycle. He received $1,000 from the League of Conservation Voters (PAC), $4,000 from Ocean Champions (PAC) and $4,000 from Republicans for Environmental Protection (PAC). In this same cycle Republicans for Environmental Protection also donated $4,000 in PAC funds to Rep. Reichert.

The League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club have directed support toward the New Jersey Republicans who voted for the new regulations. Rep. LoBiondo received $1,020 from the League of Conservation Voters (PAC) in the 2008 election cycle and $2,010 from the Sierra Club (PAC) in the 2006 election cycle.

Republicans and conservative groups opposed to the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House last week did their best to make sure Buchanan did not vote with the majority of Democrats.

Talk show host Rush Limbaugh, and conservative bloggers Michelle Malkin and Erick Erickson of Redstate.com all singled out Buchanan as one of the five undecided Republicans late last week. The bloggers published his office phone number to encourage readers to call him and tell him to vote no on the bill.

On the otherside, environmental groups were pushing Buchanan hard, singling him out for a television ad campaign aimed at encouraging people to call him and vote yes. The National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Defense Fund both ran newspaper ads in the region pushing Buchanan to vote for the bill.

His office reports receiving 2,000 calls and emails on the climate change bill by the time Friday’s vote arrived.

Buchanan ended up joining all but eight Republicans in voting against the climate change bill that includes the cap and trade regulations.

***

Mark Tapscott doesn’t like the Twitter terminology “cap-and-traitors.” He asks:

Could somebody please explain the difference between people on the Right calling the eight GOP congressmen who voted for the Obama-Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade anti-global warming energy bill “cap and traitors” and the far lefties at Moveon.org calling Gen. David Petraeus “General Betrayus”?

Seems rather obvious to me — and to the commenters over at the Examiner:

Lybberty

Jun 29, 2009

Whereas a “betrayal” by General Petraeus implies betrayal of the United States of America, the RINOs are “traitors” to the conservative cause. Come on, Mark. There is a bright-line difference between suggesting someone is a traitor to a partisan cause and the implication that someone–in this instance, a diligent, faithful, and true Army General–has betrayed his country. You can fairly say that they went too far and leave it to your readers to agree or disagree, but your comparison of these comments to the ugly treatment of General Petraeus is ridiculous.

Interestingly, Tapscott criticizes conservatives for calling the cap-and-tax 8 traitors to the Right, but has no comment on the eco-Leftists calling Republicans who voted against cap-and-tax traitors to the planet.

With China and other developing countries staunchly opposed to accepting any binding emissions requirements, we should be asking a more fundamental question: What, exactly, are we doing this for? If the goal of cap-and-trade is to reduce global temperatures by reducing global greenhouse gas concentrations, and if China and other leading carbon emitters continue to emit at will, then how can this supposed “problem” be solved?

Well, if you accept the alarmist science that anthropogenic gases are causing a catastrophe, then reducing global greenhouse gas concentrations is the solution. But the unilateral solution — again, that American must act first to persuade China and others to follow — is nowhere in evidence. The only thing America gets by acting alone is a raw deal, and the planet is no better off.

My Democrat colleagues want to sweep this reality under the rug. They argue that cap and trade will not only be the leash that pulls China along, but also that it will solve our economic woes, create millions of new green jobs, and promote energy security.

Now, of course, these are laudable goals. And Republicans have a simple answer to this. Let’s provide incentives, rather than taxes and mandates, to produce clean, affordable, and reliable sources of energy, whether it’s nuclear, wind, solar, clean coal, or natural gas. Cut the red tape. Encourage private investment. Let all technologies compete in the market place. However, that is not what the Democrats are proposing in the Waxman-Markey bill…

In fact, that bill does the exact opposite. It closes access to affordable sources of energy by trying to price certain kinds of energy out of the market. It picks winners and losers that will leave places like the Midwest and the South paying higher energy prices to subsidize areas in the rest of the country. And it creates more bureaucracy that will only increase the costs that consumers bear and add more layers of regulation on small businesses.

Why, then, do my colleagues believe that creating a national energy tax is necessary? It’s all rooted in global warming science. In fact, just last week the Administration produced yet another alarmist report on global warming, which of course is nothing new. It takes the worst possible predictions from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report and attempts to localize them to instill fear throughout the country. It’s no surprise that such a report was released just in time for the House vote on Waxman-Markey. However, what’s becoming clear is that despite millions of dollars spent on advertising, the American public remains rightly skeptical of the so-called ‘consensus’ on global warming. This is why my colleagues are now forced to talk more about green jobs and energy security, since the fear mongering isn’t working. …